I love great examples.  Even better when they demonstrate a good concept, that could have been so much greater.

The Good

Honda have taken a stance in the Social Interactive Media forum by creating an identity on Facebook, and opening some groups to promote their gear, lifestyle, financial services, etc.  Do a quick search for Honda on Facebook, and its one of the 500 or so groups dedicated to the Brand.  Fanboys and girls, dealerships, and people named Honda all orbit in that same universe.  In a nutshell, its not like they have total domination of their keyword, nevertheless …Kudos for joining the game.  Obviously, there’s a lot of love for Honda out there.

The case in point is the launch of their Accord Crosstour, a new crossover (CUV) car, as in, NOT SUV gas guzzling behemoth, but large family sedan with commanding driving position and luxury feel…  We can talk about rebranding later.  Launch is set for Fall 09 in the US.  About now.

The Bad

The unexpected result of this effort is that the car is getting ravaged on the facebook page. Comments are overwhelmingly negative about the look of the beast.  Shock Horror!  The vehicle and the brand are being ravaged on their own turf!  This is the nightmare of practically every marketing suit when it comes to this kind of effort.  But, this is also the great value of the effort – customer feedback!

The Butt Ugly

Yes, the car, er, rather ‘CUV’ is as ugly as a pan of fried butt.  Don’t take my word for it, have a look yourself.  When people accuse Honda of being as bad as GM when it comes to design, that’s some tough love. Apparently some rather timely tough love…perhaps a wake-up call.

OOPS!  Back to the Good!

What makes this so good is that this is what its all about on Social Interactive Media.  Feedback.  How valuable is this kind of feedback to the Honda Motor Corp US?  How will this impact production?  How will it impact advertising?  Next model year’s cosmetic update?  Not to mention Honda being in the news, on this blog, and in you brain as we speak.  This negative feedback will save them money.  What they do with the opportunity is something to follow, I reckon.

Oh no, back to the Bad…

One can only help but wonder how much more effective this effort would have been, if the facebook strategy had been applied in the design stage, if Honda had asked for input as opposed to approval of a finished product.

The lesson:  Social interactive media feedback is good, but better when you integrate it in the process so you can act upon it before everything is a done deal.  There is no such thing as bad feedback if you understand how to work with it.

Facebook | Honda Accord Crosstour

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Part of the whole web2.0 and social interactive marketing buzz is about user generated content, word of mouth recommendation and the authority they bring.

It appears, at least in New York State, USA, that posing as a regular punter and putting up your own positive reviews constitutes the equivalent of false advertising.

So along with risking SEO purgatory, you may also be risking $$$ and lets not even talk about the brand value statement…

ATTORNEY GENERAL CUOMO SECURES SETTLEMENT WITH PLASTIC SURGERY FRANCHISE THAT FLOODED INTERNET WITH FALSE POSITIVE REVIEWS

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To blog or not to blog, that is the question.  Most the larger companies I have worked with have held the idea of a corporate blog at arms distance.  There’s a lot of concern about being targeted,  or having unpleasant issues brought onto their ‘turf’.

Its not an outright rejection, but a ‘we’ll keep an eye on the issue, maybe next year’ kind of thing.

Tell them about Sun, Dell, and a whole other raft of good news examples, but its still, ‘next year, maybe…’

The bigger they are, the slower they move.  Too many trying to cover their asses, too few trying to shake it!

Here’s an example of several trends and applications of corporate blogs to crank up the music and maybe get the dance floor rocking!
And, say hello to some leaders, brands that are engaging, building collateral and embracing the future.  Ones you can bet will persevere, good investments…

Corporate Blog Design: Trends And Examples

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Still on my Social Media topic:

A great presentation to put the size and viability of social media into perspective.

Think paradigm shift is search, customer relationship management, customer engagement and product development.

Statistics Show Social Media Is Bigger Than You Think

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Social Interactive Marketing, beyond SEO, Beyond SEM.  All about extending the tentacles to pull traffic back to the head.

This is something that take work, constantly, and dovetails nicely with any optimisation effort.  The growth of opportunities makes for a growth in efforts to capture them.  Get used to it.  If you’d like some detailed help in putting together a plan, let me know.

The attached article gives you a nice overview, but for each and every enterprise, its a different basket of goods in detail.

Social Media Optimization: 16 Rules Revisited – Online Marketing Blog

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For the 5th year running, Razorfish, the interactive powerhouse agency of the megaverse has released its crystal ball gazing “Digital Outlook Report” for 2009. I’ve been following these for a couple of years and found them to be very insightful, and truly inspiring.  If you have anything to do with interactive strategy, either as a marketer or a manager, it really is a must read.

Some highlights:

1. Advertisers will turn to “measurability” and “differentiation”
in the recession.

2. Search will not be immune to the impact of the economy.

3. Social Influence Marketing™ will go mainstream. This is a biggie!

The increased potency of social networking: people are influencing each other — online, in small groups, through peer pressure, reciprocity or flattery — giving rise to a whole new form of marketing that we called Social Influence Marketing™ (SIM).

4. Online ad networks will contract; open ad exchanges will expand.

5. This year, mobile will get smarter.

6. Research and measurement will enter the digital age.

7. “Portable” and “beyond-the-browser” opportunities will create new touchpoints for brands and content owners.

8. Going digital will help TV modernize.

9. Business model innovation is increasingly popular.

10. move from scarcity of media to scarcity of attention. Note: Email Marketing.

11. Digital Moms are ultimate time poor multi-taskers.

You really should take the time to go through this 180 page report. Its packed with insight and inspiration.

Get the full report here

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This is a nice article about usability, but what it also brings to light are some content management and authoring ideas. It also reminds us that testing is not so difficult, when you consider the alternatives of trial and error at $120 per hour.

The point that I really want to highlight is the web2.0 interactive community advice.  This dovetails nicely with my earlier reference to the Wired article on the long tail, and niche topics.

Interactive community requires a certain critical mass to make it work, the community.  We’ve all seen it happen so many times before: set up a party, but no guests come to play (other than the spam slammers).

So, is it better to piggy back on the established sites with posts, groups or widgets, or to build your own community resources?

Its a long tail question – is your content attractive enough to claim its place on the long tail and attract its own audience, or is it best posted as a side attraction on an established community where you can go after ‘passing traffic’.

Much the same as a retailer considers a shop in a mall to garner passing traffic, or a streetside location because they know customers will come to them as a destination.

To get a handle on the interest in your topic, try a little social interactive marketing activity across multiple relevant community sites, blogs and forums to sample how much interest there is in your message, and don’t forget that landing page on your site to measure your results.

And remember, it doesn’t matter where or how you build your audience, its about your audience, and the message you get across. Its an evolving process and you’ll have to work it if you want good results.

Blink Interactive: Essays – Usability Highlights: 2008 and Beyond

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Following the “show don’t tell” principle, another link to things that work in the real world:

2008 Forrester Groundswell Awards Winners

We’ve pored over all 150 entries. These were difficult choices — the quality of social applications improved markedly in 2008, and many were excellent, with real proof of business value. Today we announce the best of the best — the winners by category. Here they are, with links to their entries:

2008 Forrester Groundswell Awards Winners full story

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Web2.0 seems to be finally de-buzzing.  Now we talk about social interactivity, online community and user generated content, which makes me a lot more comfortable. But, people are still missing the point.

Calling it Web2.0 is like talking about something that’s going to be, but already was.

From the beginning, the web was about community.   Sharing, collaborating, coalescing.  Sure its evolved a bit from the days when it was exclusively populated by American military command and control geeks, and Ivy League physics professors passing research coast to coast. We might say its gotten a bit more common, fair enough.  The ‘community’ has grown, and the tools for interaction have gotten a bit more advanced than the original bare bones hypertext markup language, BBS systems and FidoNet.

So, what makes such a buzz about web2.0? 

With so many interactive developments, critical mass played a part.  We common folk (professionally known as ‘users’) caught onto the idea that they could push into the sphere, as opposed to simply passively

[Read more →]

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Great article on strategic communicaiton.  It reinforces the principle that the only constant is change.  Its not enough just to publish it when you’re fighting for every millisecond of attention.

Micro Persuasion: Trends That Will Help Define the Future of PR and Marketing

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